Stories of Sri Lanka Women

Stories of Sri Lankan Women is the flagship work of Everystory Sri Lanka and was conceived during the first lockdown in May 2020 as a response to the lack of information available – particularly for children and young adults – on the many women whose lives, work, and experience have shaped and were shaped by our social, political and cultural contexts.

 

This work aims to bring to the forefront the stories of these girls and women from the 20th and 21st centuries and explore their life histories. We look to draw synergies across places and contexts, spotlighting catalytic moments and highlighting where and how alternative feminist histories can be told. We hope to understand the life-cycle of these stories; rather than concentrate on a single moment, we are interested in understanding their journey and life trajectory. We are also focusing specifically on women who are living/have lived and worked in Sri Lanka for the more significant part of their lives.

 

The work is built on the tenet of democratizing knowledge to make sure the material we collect, archive, and record is free and publicly available. We envision this as a book for children (inspired by the international Rebel Girls series).

 

In the feminist spirit of democratizing knowledge, our long-term vision for this work is to have the final format of the stories we collect and their sources (as far as possible) accessible through an open archive for others to learn from, add to, and celebrate.